Established in 1995, the Northwestern Juvenile Project assessed alcohol, drug, or mental (ADM) service needs of juvenile detainees. The study took place between the years of 1995 and 1998, sampling 1,829 male and female juvenile detainees within Cook County, Illinois. This study had two specific aims:
To assess the juvenile detainees ADM service needs (including psychiatric disorder, comorbidity and functional impairment); and,
To determine the extent that juvenile detainees who need ADM services received them while in the custody of the criminal justice system.
This study has four methodological advantages over prior research:
Stratified random sampling;
Sufficiently large N (approximately 600 females and 1200 males);
Reliable instruments; and
Comorbidity data.
Questions for respondents generally pertain to demographics, medical and sexual history, criminal history, aptitude and mental health assessment, familial and social relations, drug abuse, and education.

Established in 1995, the Northwestern Juvenile Project assessed alcohol, drug, or mental (ADM) service needs of juvenile detainees. The study took place between the years of 1995 and 1998, sampling 1,829 male and female juvenile detainees within Cook County, Illinois. This study had two specific aims:

Users are reminded that these data are to be used solely for statistical analysis and reporting of aggregated information, and not for the investigation of specific individuals or organizations.

Access to this data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research. Apply for access to these data through the ICPSR data access request system portal. See the ICPSR data access request system portal for information and instructions.

Any public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

Dataset(s)

WARNING: Because this study has many datasets, the download all files option has been suppressed, and you will need to download one dataset at a time.

Universe:
Male and female juvenile detainees, ages 10 to 18, in the Cook County (IL) Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (CCJTDC) between November 1995 and June 1998. All detainees younger than 17 years are held at CCJTDC, including youths processed as adults (automatic transfers to adult court). Youths may be detained in the CCJTDC until they are 21 years of age if they are being prosecuted for an arrest that occurred when they were younger than 17 years.

Data Type(s):
survey data

Methodology

Sample:

Males and females, aged 10 to 18 years were randomly sampled at intake into the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (CCJTDC) from November 1995 through June 1998. The sample was stratified by gender, race/ethnicity (African American, non-Hispanic White, Hispanic, other), age (males only, aged 10 to 13 years or 14 years and older), and legal status (males only, processed as a juvenile or as an adult). There were a total of 13 strata:

black females

non-Hispanic white females

Hispanic females

black males, 10-13 years old

non-Hispanic white males, 10-13 years old

Hispanic males, 10-13 years old

older black males, processed as an adult

older non-Hispanic white males, processed as an adult

older Hispanic males, processed as an adult

older black males, processed as a juvenile

older non-Hispanic white males, processed as a juvenile

older Hispanic males, processed as a juvenile

other race/ethnicity

Detainees were eligible to be sampled regardless of their psychiatric morbidity, state of drug or alcohol intoxication, or fitness to stand trial. Within each stratum, the project used a random-numbers table to select names from Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center's intake log. The final sampling fractions ranged from 0.018 to 0.689.

Time Method:
Longitudinal

Weight:

The case weight, or base weight, is t_WT. This is the inverse of the sampling fraction for the corresponding strata. The number of persons in the population represented by each participant in the strata is t_WT.

The case weight for use with the AIDS subsample is aids_T.

The case weight for use with the PTSD subsample is ptsd_WT.

The normalized case weight is t_wt. This is the case weight t_WT divided by the mean of the case weights.

The number of persons in a population of 1829 represented by each participant in the strata is t_wt. The sum of the t_wt is 1829.

The normalized case weight for use with the AIDS Risk subsample is aids_wt. The sum of the aids_wts 800.

The normalized case weight for use with the PTSD/Loss subsample is ptsd_wt. The sum of the ptsd_wts 915.

Response Rates:
Of the 2275 names selected at CCJTDC, 4.2 percent (34 youth and 62 parents or guardians) refused to participate. There were no significant differences in refusal rates by sex, race/ethnicity, or age. Of the 96 total refusals, 26 were processed as adults (automatic transfers) who were counseled by their lawyers to refuse participation. The refusal rate in this stratum was 7.1 percent (26 of 368). Twenty-seven youth left the detention center before interviews could be scheduled; 312 were not interviewed because they left while attempts were made to locate their caretakers for consent. Eleven others were excluded: 9 became physically ill during the interview and could not finish it, 1 was too cognitively impaired to be interviewed, and 1 appeared to be lying according to interviewers.

Service Utilization (SERV) [adapted from the service utilization module from the MECA study]

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: